Watching the Lets Play, this did strike me as something geared more toward younger folk, or players just starting out. "Babies first JRPG" so to speak. Really hardcore gamers probably would find it boring.

Smackledorfer:Skr: Curious if the USA version has a "Japanese voice w/ subtitles" option, though the english voice acting in the game previews seems like it was pretty decent. The typical soft spoken style that most of the english Ghibli films have.

Maybe I'm a closet racist or something, but I've never found Japanese voice in anime particularly appealing as voice work. Sure some of the English stuff is pretty bad, but generally the Japanese voice acting is so ridiculously over the top with screaming and other shenanigans that its hardly an improvement considering I don't speak the language.

I'm not a huge anime buff or anything, so maybe I just haven't seen the worst of the worst, but it seems almost all my friends who enjoy anime refuse to watch anything dubbed.

I tend to side with your friends, although I've not been a big anime fans in recent years either.

I was a teen back in the 70's and remember so many anime series that were just raped by english dubbing companies. Everything dumbed down to a ten year olds understanding level, and I just hated that crap. I know there are talented english voice actors in the field, but I just can't seem to shake that old prejudice.

Smackledorfer:Skr: Curious if the USA version has a "Japanese voice w/ subtitles" option, though the english voice acting in the game previews seems like it was pretty decent. The typical soft spoken style that most of the english Ghibli films have.

Maybe I'm a closet racist or something, but I've never found Japanese voice in anime particularly appealing as voice work. Sure some of the English stuff is pretty bad, but generally the Japanese voice acting is so ridiculously over the top with screaming and other shenanigans that its hardly an improvement considering I don't speak the language.

I'm not a huge anime buff or anything, so maybe I just haven't seen the worst of the worst, but it seems almost all my friends who enjoy anime refuse to watch anything dubbed.

Actually, that's part of the reason I stick with it for anything that's not a Ghibli-hey-we-got-Patrick-Stewart movie, because even IF the Japanese is overblown, it doesn't trigger mental rage the way poor English does for me. There are some high-pitched voices that can get to me regardless, but they're few and far between these days. I'll take a "probably overdone but I can't tell what's being said and I have no idea how things are usually intoned or flow conversationally" over "90% poorly or boringly acted, directed, and edited." No to mention there are then dialogue modifications to fit mouth movements. (Admittedly also something that's gotten to be less of an issue over the years.)

Special exemption to dubs so horrible and so far gone (like the ancient Golden Boy OVAs) that they become MST3K-like hilarity. ;-)

cthellis:There are some high-pitched voices that can get to me regardless, but they're few and far between these days. I'll take a "probably overdone but I can't tell what's being said and I have no idea how things are usually intoned or flow conversationally" over "90% poorly or boringly acted, directed, and edited."

I can see that. If it is in a language you don't understand with different intonations you can't tell bad voice acting even if it's there.

Watching the Lets Play, this did strike me as something geared more toward younger folk, or players just starting out. "Babies first JRPG" so to speak. Really hardcore gamers probably would find it boring.

Smackledorfer: Skr: Curious if the USA version has a "Japanese voice w/ subtitles" option, though the english voice acting in the game previews seems like it was pretty decent. The typical soft spoken style that most of the english Ghibli films have.

Maybe I'm a closet racist or something, but I've never found Japanese voice in anime particularly appealing as voice work. Sure some of the English stuff is pretty bad, but generally the Japanese voice acting is so ridiculously over the top with screaming and other shenanigans that its hardly an improvement considering I don't speak the language.

I'm not a huge anime buff or anything, so maybe I just haven't seen the worst of the worst, but it seems almost all my friends who enjoy anime refuse to watch anything dubbed.

I tend to side with your friends, although I've not been a big anime fans in recent years either.

I was a teen back in the 70's and remember so many anime series that were just raped by english dubbing companies. Everything dumbed down to a ten year olds understanding level, and I just hated that crap. I know there are talented english voice actors in the field, but I just can't seem to shake that old prejudice.

Dubbing has improved dramatically over the years. There's still some pretty awful efforts though -- especially in the video game industry.

I can understand watching subtitles if the dub is just ear-bleeding painful or if it has lost a lot through the translation process. Otherwise, I find many watch subs as a form of elitism.

/You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon

Hitomi Tanaka's Paperweights:However, I'm not interested in 'cute' games, I prefer darker stories and environments. So how do we get them to produce a Grave of the Fireflies RPG?

Not-really spoilers:

We've been marveling at the balance in Ni No Kuni: it's adorable, but it does have some very serious, darker, moments. The game begins after the main character's mother dies - and it's hard to see her death as not being his fault. There's also been a subplot that hints at spousal abuse. We're not even that far in.

I keep joking that the whole game is an elaborate inner fantasy world constructed by a depressed child, but I'll be angry if that's actually the case.